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Original poster

What is something someone has said that is etched in your brain?

707 replies

WhiteNoiseMoreToys · 19/02/2023 21:49

Mine is when I was 17, pretty self conscious and just finished being intimate with my then boyfriend.

We decided to get up and go out and as I sat up to put my top on he poked my belly and said “Christ, you could feed Africa with that tyre” it baffles me now, how brazen it was to just come out with it. But I was a size 8-10 and honestly I think I’m still confused 😂

Its one of those things that ‘pop’ into my mind at random times ans it’s gout me wondering what others peoples ‘moments’ are when they remember something someone has said that might not have significance, but will always be remembered.

OP posts:
barbrahunter · 20/02/2023 08:05

My mother: 'you count for nothing' and 'you're a bad luck jinx, a Jonah'.

Arthurflecksfacepaint · 20/02/2023 08:09

“You are nothing and you will always be nothing.” My head teacher.

(I’ll show her, I thought! Then royally fucked up everything I ever tried to do making myself miserable and more depressed in the process.

She was right.)

LadyChatterlysLover · 20/02/2023 08:12

Oh so many.

"You shouldn't weigh that much." Said by my Dad when I was 14, 5ft 8 and 9 stone. He followed it up by saying "you're a child and that's a full grown adults weight." His horrible girlfriend was tittering away and saying "you weigh more than me!" I was about six inches taller than her, with FF cup boobs, and she had AAs! How did they know how much I weighed? They made me stand on a set of scales when I went to visit them, as a "bit of fun." They also measured my hips and gasped with shock when there was a 10 inch difference between that measurement and my waist, exchanging looks of utter disbelief in this freak before them.

I can't step on scales. When I had to do it when pregnant, I would feel sick and tearful. I never wanted to know how much I weighed. Right now I am a size 16 and I feel so ashamed to be around my Dad because I'm no taller than I was when I was 14, I'm just heavier, but both of my sisters are very slim, which I know from bitter experience that he values.

gemloving · 20/02/2023 08:14

When I was about 17, a boy in school told me how ugly I look with my hair up so I wore it down for years and years and years and still only wear it up if I had no time to wash it.

Bodybarnet · 20/02/2023 08:15

I've always felt very masculine as I am naturally quite an athletic build and much broader than my petite sister so the following have always stuck with me:
Beautician 1: when going to have a leg wax: " your hair (the hair on the back of my legs) is like a man's, it looks like a footballers"

Beautician 2: I've never seen eyelashes so short. It's not even worth curling (yes my lashes are short but not that short!)

DMIL: Doing my nails and once said to me "wow, you have hands like plates".

I guess all these just pick up on my massive insecurity but they've always stuck with me.

thedancingbear · 20/02/2023 08:17

One colleague about another, who had recently suffered a heart attack (out of the blue, in her 40s, probably a size 14-16):

'It's not surprising, you can tell by her body shape she's not in the best of health'

Can't forgive it, can't look past it.

CupEmpty · 20/02/2023 08:17

@WhiteNoiseMoreToys i had similar with a boyfriend when I was at uni. I was a size 8 and looking back at photos, now see how lovely I was (as most people in their youth are, I’m haggard now 🤣) and he said he was less attracted to me as I had a slight belly. Utter tosser.

AngelinaFibres · 20/02/2023 08:18

I moved back to my home town 4 years after my divorce. My children were still at infants school ( 6 and 7 I think) and I was working fulltime as a teacher. I was shattered and wanted to be nearer familiar things. It was mid June. I had a job where we used to live, to see us through to the summer holidays and a new job for September in my home town.After we moved and they started at their new school I dropped them off at breakfast club and drove to my existing school to see out the term. It was an hours commute each way . I had rented a nice house ( had 2 houses for a month. Clearing us out of 1 and moving us into the other) and repainted it every weekend whilst my children were with their father. We had just enough money to get by, I had a reliable car,my children were happy. My mother's only comment about any of it was to look at me as if I was dirt and say " Well we thought you had come home to curl up and die". She is the queen of passive aggressive and made it very clear that she didn't approve of my plans and tried very hard to put me off doing them.. To be fair, once my life hit the fabulously upward trajectory I hoped a new start would allow, she did apologise but I will never forget what she said.

Ex husband " You are physically repulsive . Having sex with you made my flesh crawl". After he left me at 32 for a shiny new 17 year old girlfriend. Hey ho.

Spudlet · 20/02/2023 08:18

When I was in my final year of university, out with some friends. I was dancing and having a nice time, then one of the guys I barely even knew wandered over to me on the dance floor, squeezed my upper arm and said ‘fat arms’ then wandered off again. I went home and cried and cried. I hate my arms to this day.

Smellypup · 20/02/2023 08:24

As a newly qualified staff nurse I was trying to reassure a patient about surgery and said 'don't worry it is a routine operation'. He replied 'it may be routine to you but it isn't to me.'

It changed the way I spoke to patients.

ChrisPriss · 20/02/2023 08:31

"No one likes you" from my mother
Still can't get over that one

stephanielittl7 · 20/02/2023 08:32

You are useless and stupid.
Said by my father. I believed it for many years until i started therapy and she helped me to see Im not.
Those 5 words affected my whole life and all my relationships. I didnt see the point of me, i thought i was so useless that no one would bother with me.
And my father also sexually abused me.
I have lived with what he did for many years. Until i started therapy and the therapist was amazing, she helped me see that Im not all those things.
And now Im happy Ive got an amazing fiance who loves me for me and Ive got a small but close knit group of friends who have got my back. My life is so much better now.

Probablynamechangefail · 20/02/2023 08:33

My stepdad used to say I sounded like a squealing pig when I cried. This was when I was around 4 or 5yo and was struggling to process the abrupt divorce of my mum and dad. Yes, I had many a tantrum but saying I sounded like a pig certainly didn't help. And I don't remember my mum calling him out on it. Maybe she did but I have no recollection of that. It's stayed with me for nearly 40 years.

opalescent · 20/02/2023 08:34

As a child, a friend insisted that we rate each others looks out of ten. I went first, and gave her a 9 (because I would never dream of doing anything else, even at that age). She gave me a 4, and then listed all the reasons that I was unattractive.

WhichPage · 20/02/2023 08:39

Me dad to me (his first born and female) on the birth of my first born

’you are so lucky to get a boy first’

Greensleevevssnotnose · 20/02/2023 08:44

Ex husband you are too fat to fuck I was a 14 but a 6 when I met him.

Mum said ashe wished she had aborted me like my granny wanted

theDudesmummy · 20/02/2023 08:47

From my father when, as a 14-year old, I was looking at pictures of beauty pageant contestants in a newspaper and mentioned I wished I could enter the competition: "you'd have to put a bag over your head". I have forgiven him in the more than 45 years since that day, and I am sure he would not remember it, but the comment had indelible effects on my self-esteem, to this day.

Blueuggboots · 20/02/2023 08:51

"You're not beautiful, you're........(big pause).....striking"

Thanks Dad, after telling my friend she looked beautiful.

ancientgran · 20/02/2023 08:58

WibblyWobblyTimeyWimeyStuff · 19/02/2023 22:17

Similar to the OP - and a couple of other posters on here. When I was about 17/18, I was dating this bloke - about four or five years older than me, and we were about three weeks in. We were sitting on the couch in my mum and dads dining room, when he squeezed me around the waist, and said 'wow you got a really bloody flabby ring of lard around your middle haven't you fatty?' with a massive grin! Grin 'Yeah, you could pinch more than an inch!' (Remember the pinch an inch campaign? Fucking awful THAT was! Can you pinch more than an inch? You must be obese then.) Hmm

I am 5 foot 3 and I was eight stone 5 pounds. And a size 8/10. I was already a little bit conscious about my weight and my size because I was a couple of stone heavier a couple years before and had lost weight, and actually felt OK about myself. Yet here was this 22 year old MAN telling me I was a flabby lardy porker. I dumped him that night, but what he said sent me into a spiral of crash dieting.

Every woman I have ever spoken to has a tale to tell of being fatshamed by a man - or boy. And most of the time they were not a single ounce overweight.

Doesn't happen to everyone. Never had a comment from boyfriends or husbands (I've been married twice.) My mother was prone to making comments though, usually about the fact I was flat chested, still am for that matter. We were very close but she really had no filter.

An art teacher once told me he was going to put, "Ancient couldn't draw a straight line with the aid of a ruler" on my report but he was a bit more tactful on the actual report. I knew I was no good at art but that did nothing to encourage me and I still think of it nearly 60 years later.

HelloTreacle9 · 20/02/2023 09:03

My first (female) boss, in my first proper professional job after uni, aged 22, at my first ever performance review: “You’re not as good as you think you are.” A propos of absolutely nothing, no evidence or reason to say that. I’m nearly 50 and still in that profession, now as one of the global leaders in my niche field, but I remember that regularly and still have doubts about my ability.

Too many to mention from my parents, not vicious but so careless with their words.

A nice one: in my 40s, post-baby stretch marks, cancer surgery scars, bit of a porridgey tummy, my new DP encouraged me to wear a bikini for the first time in decades and said ‘you look so hot’. He made me feel desirable and sexy again.

ellyanna · 20/02/2023 09:05

I struggled to settle into secondary school. My primary group became friends with some boys in our year and made it clear I didn't fit in. One Friday they were organising to meet at the shopping arcade the next day and one lad pointed to all the other girls in turn and made a 'bing' sound, but when he got to me he said 'urrrh urghhh' like the scoreboard on Family Fortunes. I wasn't normally the kind of child to cry over what someone said to me, but that really winded me and I still remember how I felt at that moment now, nearly 30 years later.

Moominprincess · 20/02/2023 09:05

When an ex wanted to leave but was a coward. Instead of just leaving he made my life a misery for months but insisted it was all me. When he tried to ruin a short break with a ridiculous strop and I tried to reason with him he launched a tirade of abuse at me targeting the most hurtful things he could say to me. While I broke down crying he screamed at me that noone loved me and noone ever would. Told me my family hated me and I was a terrible person. He then left me miles from home with the tickets on his phone for the return journey that I had paid for. I know I was a kind and generous person who got taken advantage of a lot but those words messed me up for a while. Now they have taught me never to give up my independence and control of my life to anyone.

Goodread1 · 20/02/2023 09:05

@LadyChatterlysLover
I am sorry to hear that you had such a massive twat of a father like that,

I really think he had some serious insecurities issues

As well as being personality disorder in mix too,

Like Narastistic tendencies and something else,

He sounds like useless waste 🗑 space of father,

A disappointing crap father for anyone to have,

Don't base your self esteem on his view points,

You are so much more tha than that, Prick of man.

He is inadequate,

So allways felt need to put you down to feel better

Sorry to hear that you have

You have such

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 20/02/2023 09:08

I was driving across to see my DM, after a week when she had been particularly unpleasant to me. I turned on the radio , and some completely random person said out of the ether ‘you have to forgive’.

it was as if I had had a personal message from a better place. I’ve never forgotten it, and I try to put it into practice ( bloody hard sometimes).

BellePeppa · 20/02/2023 09:09

Back in the 90s I was going through a thin stage (I would lose weight very easily if I was ill and struggle to put it back on). I’d just started a new temp job and the department boss (a middle aged man) gave me as his surly greeting (in front of everyone) “I’ve seen more meat on a chip”. I felt so humiliated, my self image was already low and his rudeness really cut me and I can still look back and be aghast at his utter rudeness to a complete stranger at work. Today I’d have just picked my coat up and walked out.